We Are All Slaves (Romans 6:15-23)

In verse 1 of this chapter Paul answers a question that expressed criticism of his message about how sins were forgiven freely by God because Jesus on the cross at Calvary paid the penalty due on his people for their sins. His message had been criticised because it stressed that human efforts to keep God’s law as a means of salvation were pointless because they were unable to keep it.

Now, in verse 15, he answers another question arising out of his explanation of how Christians are given power by God to live for him through their union with Jesus. Through that union, they experience the power of the Holy Spirit as the one who gives life to his people so that they can obey God.

It is important to remind ourselves that Paul is not against the law of God in itself, as we can see from his comments in verse 12 of the next chapter: ‘So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.’ Instead he is against a wrong use of the law. Moreover, and more importantly in the context of this chapter, Paul is against a wrong understanding of grace. The wrong understanding is that a message about grace leads to license as far as correct living is concerned.  We can almost see a critic saying that he preferred legalism to such license. So Paul has to explain why grace does not result in licence as far as sin is concerned. What does he say?

The choice before us

First, he states a general principle that no-one would disagree with: ‘Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?’ The principle is that if a person chooses to serve another power he will be a slave to that authority.

Obviously Paul is showing us here how to argue the case for Christianity. Those who do should mention a principle about which all would agree. Then it is easier for others to understand what we mean. No doubt, the same practice is good when discussing things with other believers.

Second, he mentions the two forces that will reveal we are slaves, and the two options he refers to are both opposed to one another. The two options are sin and obedience, and since they are contrasts he means disobedience to God when he refers to the power of sin. Our future behaviour is inevitably connected to how we deal with those options for living. Obedience will result in righteous living whereas disobedience will result on ongoing experience of spiritual death.

The change Christians have experienced

Paul stresses that true believers in Jesus, those who have experienced his forgiveness, will choose to obey from the heart the standard of teaching that was conveyed to them. The first question we can ask about this statement is, what is the standard of teaching that was given to them? I would suggest that we get the answer to this question in the words of Jesus found in what we call the Great Commission. There he told his apostles to teach their disciples to observe all that he had commanded them to obey. We get an example of those requirements in the Sermon of the Mount and when we read them we can see that Jesus uses the law, but does so in a very different way from those who responded in a legalistic way.

Then we can consider the amazing fact that each of them has been given a new heart that will want to obey this standard. There were two groups who thought differently from the way that Christians did. One was the Gentiles, who had ignored the law that God had written on their hearts, and the group were the Jews who imagined that since they had been given the law by God they were able to keep it. The response of Paul to both groups is totally negative. As far as he was concerned, a life of obedience could only happen when a person had received a new heart.

This new heart came about through hearing about Jesus and what he had taught and done. In a way that we cannot understand, those individuals having heard the gospel discovered that they had a changed outlook and now wanted to trust in Jesus and obey him. They discovered that they had sinned and now wanted to have Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. We could say that Jesus as the Saviour set them free from sin and as Lord he empowered them by his Spirit to obey him as best as they could.

For us to say that Jesus is Lord is for us also to say that we are his slaves. The two go together and are found in every true Christian. It is the case that their lives are not sinless and perfect. Nevertheless they are described by Paul in verse 19: ‘For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.’

How do we show that we are Christ’s slaves? We do so by refusing to serve sin and by choosing to live in a righteous manner. This new lifestyle is a contrast to what they once did (their previous lifestyle is described as lawlessness, which means that their new lifestyles must include obedience to the law) and is comprehensive in scope (it involves every member of their bodies and spirits. This means that a Christian cannot be selective regarding which of Christ’s instructions he should obey and which areas of his life should be given to Christ in submission. Jesus must be Lord of all or else he is not Lord at all.

In addition, this new lifestyle is not static in a spiritual sense. Instead it makes progress in the spiritual life. This progress can be described in several ways. It means to become increasingly like Jesus, it means to have the fruit of the Spirit, it means that there is a growing hatred of and distaste for sin. Sanctification in this sense always describes a changing situation.

Some respond to this description by saying that they are not what they should be as sanctified people. Yet as has often been pointed out, while we may not be what we should be, and while we cannot be what one day we will be (totally holy), we are not what we once were before we believed in Jesus. And any progress we have made is due to the grace of God.

The conclusion Christians come to

Paul reminds his readers of what they were like before their conversion. Because they were slaves to sin they could not do any righteous actions. This slavery was that complete. Whether or not they had the law of God, it made no difference because it is impossible for a slave of sin to do anything righteous that is pleasing to God. As Paul puts it, they had no fruit.

Moreover, he reminds them of the awful destiny to which they were heading: ‘For the end of those things is death.’ They were spiritually dead and travelling to eternal death. In the last verse in the chapter, he says that such death is well-deserved because it is the wages for which they have toiled. They chose to participate in sin and therefore will in the future receive its payment, eternal death.

Paul was confident that his readers would have a particular attitude to their previous life of slavery to sin. He says in verse 21 that they were now ashamed of their past sinful behaviour. Ashamed is an interesting word. It means that we are embarrassed by what we had done. Paul does not say that we are ashamed of some of the things that we did. Instead he is saying that even regarding our best actions we now realise that elements of sin were present, perhaps in our attitudes or in our reasons for doing them. They now felt ashamed. Such a response is a very good indication that we realise what we were really like in God’s sight before his grace changed us.

The destiny Christians anticipate

In verse 22, Paul describes the Christian life; ‘But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.’ He refers to their past, present and future as Christians.

What is their past? Paul uses the illustration of a slave market in which slaves are being sold by one master and purchased by another master. We could easily imagine how a slave could be sold by a bad master and purchased by a new master. Sometimes a slave was captured in war and his previous master had been defeated. Before they were purchased by God, Christians had been the slaves of a very bad master, sin, which had complete domination over them. But Jesus through his death delivered them from the power of sin and brought them into a relationship in which they now had a new Master. They would have realised this change at the time of their conversion or thereabouts, although they would also become aware that the change was connected to what Jesus had done at Calvary when he died and was later resurrected. This is an important aspect of the message of the gospel, which is that sinners can be delivered from the power of sin as well as from its penalty.

What is their present? They were bearing fruit, which is another way of saying that they were alive. Paul changes the imagery to that of a tree and its fruit. No doubt, he would have been aware of how Jesus had likened himself to a vine of which his disciples were branches and of which his Father was the gardener. Fruit comes through union with the risen Jesus, a union realised in the experience of all disciples by the Holy Spirit.

What kind of fruit will they produce? The answer to this question is Christlikeness. Jesus kept the law perfectly and lived a beautiful life. While he was sinless, they are still sinful, so their fruit is not perfect. But it will be there and it will increase as their sanctification progresses. Such a change is promised in the new covenant relationship into which all believers have been brought. The question we have all to ask is, ‘How much more like Jesus am I?’

What is their future (v. 23)? Paul refers to their future in this life before it ends (sanctification), and also what they will have after that (eternal life). Their future is a contrast (gift as opposed to wages), company (connected to Jesus), corporate (for all of them), constant (eternal life) and capable (enables all aspects of our personalities to develop endlessly).

The question Paul is asking here is whether or not we need legalism to illustrate our slavery to God or license in order to appreciate the liberty we have from him. The answer is that we do not need nor should we want either of them. Instead we should trust in Jesus, adhere to his requirements and experience the Spirit’s enabling.